7/12/18

HARRY ROSENTHAL, MUSICAL POPPINJAY

Meet Harry Rosenthal. He was a silent film piano accompaniest who later became a movie-score conductor due to the fact that his first career was phased out of existence when talking films phased out silents. In 1930 he made the above Fox Movietone short film demonstrating the quite fascinating technique of adding music 'on the fly' to a movie being projected. The end of this specialty act came two years or so before this demo film was made. Synchronized music scores, however, first came about in 1926 with Warner Brothers 'Don Juan' starring John Barrymore, though that film was still mute as far as dialogue goes. Imagine the advent of a symphonic score against picture being a sufficient enough novelty to be cause for a billboard like the one pictured below? Yes, in fact, I can. The reason that I'm posting this at this particular moment is that I'm sitting in a sound mix and marveling how much a great score can elevate a movie. Many thanks to the mysterious YouTube artist Guy Jones for restoring and posting another invaluable Fox Movietone artifact.